Students make profit on the market

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (WIVB) - With the stock market on such a rollercoaster ride lately it can be a scary time for investors.

That didn't stop a local university from handing over $100,000 to some students. In his investment class at Niagara University , Professor Ed Hutton, Dir., NU Financial Services Laboratory, knows there's only such much he can teach his students by textbook.

"So we had a proposal that we went to our board of trustees and said we'd like to be the investment manager for a portion of your portfolio."
   
The board agreed and gave the class a $100,000 endowment for one semester. That's real money to play in the stock market, in the worst economy since the Great Depression.

Niagara University Senior Melissa Temple said, "We were pretty nervous at first."

"This class was actually the first experience I've ever had with stocks," said Heather Benson from Niagara University.

And Joe Skinner, Niagara University Senior, said, "Investing $100,000, you see bigger returns faster. So it was great to experience that first hand."

The class studied many factors including the price target and dividend yield, and they decided to buy seven stocks, Goldman Sachs, Johnson and Johnson, Oracle, Apple, Waste Management, Coca-Cola, and Apollo Group. They lost money with Johnson and Johnson.

"Through February it declined steadily. And then hit it's low," said Mark Dickson.

Apple could've been a good move, but they sold it at the wrong time.

"We purchased it. And then we said well if it drops here we'll sell because it's going to be going back down. Well that's not what happened. And we lost the possibility of making quite a bit of money," said Dickson.

Goldman Sachs, however, turned out golden. "We purchased it and it has done extraordinarily well. And I think we ended up earning about 288%."

So how did they do overall?

"Over the time that we invested, the overall stock market lost about 2% of its value," said Prof. Ed Hutton. "Our students made over 2%."

That's a few thousand dollars in a few short months. The key, they said, is to be in it for the long haul and be diversified.

Mark Dickinson said, "The more stocks you invest in, the more different industries, the less effect one will have on the other."